Filmmaker Joanne Cheng's documentary opens far from China, as thousands of Chinese-Americans celebrate in Manhattan while a huge TV screen flashes views of Beijing residents greeting a new millennium 13 hours earlier. China honors its ancient culture, yet embraces the future with hope and enthusiasm. Likewise, Cheng feels the pull to reclaim her Chinese roots after a 10 year absence living in America, returning to her homeland to find life in the cities much changed. Instead of drab regimentation, metropolitan areas now sport well-stocked malls, Internet cafes, and lots of neon. Yet life in the countryside continues to move at a slow pace, where residents are often poor and do not share in the information and consumer boom. Featuring interviews with web surfers, business executives, diplomats and trade officials, and Westerners, the film touches on questions ranging from China's future role in the world economy to the erosion of morals in China's headlong rush to materialism (indeed, the video concludes in a dance club with a mosh pit, a hedonistic scene scarcely imaginable a few years ago). While Cheng aims to promote communication between East and West, a wider view is needed here, especially as the film claims to be about neither "politics, nor business [but] communication." But the subjects are intrinsically interrelated. China's government embraces a free market economy, but refuses to recognize individual freedoms, a contradiction that could possibly sink her hope for peace and prosperity. A valuable, sincere, but incomplete snapshot of China at the beginning of a new century, this exorbitantly priced PBS-aired program is an optional purchase for larger public and academic libraries. Aud: C, P. (S. Rees)
China Gold Rush
(2000) 52 min. $450. East-West Corridor Communications. PPR. Color cover. Vol. 16, Issue 1
China Gold Rush
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